Programming Concepts Intermediate

What is Functional Programming?

A programming paradigm that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions, avoiding state changes and mutable data.

Functional programming emphasizes pure functions (same input always produces same output, no side effects), immutable data, and function composition. Key concepts include map, filter, reduce, recursion, and higher-order functions.

Benefits include easier testing (pure functions), parallelism (no shared state), and predictable behavior. Languages include Haskell, Erlang, Clojure, and Scala. Most modern languages (Python, JavaScript, Java) support functional features.

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Garbage Collection

An automatic memory management process that identifies and reclaims memory no longer in use by a program.

Version Control

A system that records changes to files over time, allowing you to recall specific versions, collaborate, and track history.

An optimization technique that caches function results for given inputs, avoiding redundant computations for repeated calls.

A step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or performing a computation, defined as a finite sequence of instructions.

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)

A programming paradigm that organizes software design around objects containing data and behavior.

Factory Pattern

A creational design pattern that provides an interface for creating objects without specifying their exact classes.

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